


Inclement Weather

by Getti (Epsy)



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Canon: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Kissing in the rain is becoming a theme, M/M, dubious understanding of alchemical principles, making Al suffer their awkward couplyness is best
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-15
Updated: 2016-04-15
Packaged: 2018-06-02 10:09:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6562189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Epsy/pseuds/Getti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roy has started to enjoy his time with Edward Elric. He'd enjoy it more if he was dry, mind, but you can't win them all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inclement Weather

**Author's Note:**

> I did the absolute minimal research required for this, I'm sorry. There's almost certainly something incongruous in here. It's just a small exercise to get me into writing canon versions of them. I feel like I know au Ed and Roy quite well, but it's time to get into the brains of their Brotherhood selves. 
> 
> Words: 5000-something. It's only diddly, for me.

  
"Forgot your umbrella?" A lesser man would wince at Ed's sardonic tone. Roy merely tucks away his displeasure and attempts to flick wet hair out of his eyes. Rivulets of cold water make their way down his spine. As a contrast, Ed is in a long brown coat, looking irritatingly warm and snug standing underneath an umbrella with two disgustingly adorable cat ears on the top of it.

"Seems that you did too. The ears were Alphonse's idea, I take it?" Roy's shoes squidge when he walks, but Ed's angry pout makes it that much more bearable.

"He said if I was going to make him transmute umbrellas every time I left mine at the house, he should get to pick the design."

"All's fair in sibling love and war."

"Stop being clever and get back inside. You're useless at the best of times, but when you're wet you're particularly pathetic." Ed suddenly refuses to meet Roy's eye. Roy raises an eyebrow and feels his curiosity stir.

"If I go back inside, Lieutenant Hawkeye will rope me into another hour of paperwork, and I've done my time for today. We're in peacetime now, anyway, Edward. Why should it matter? I thought you of all people would enjoy seeing me drenched to the bone." Roy can almost see the hackles rise, the hair stand on end. Ed shoves a fist deep into his coat pocket.

"As dumb as you look, it's not worth having to dig you out of trouble. I heard about the declaration. The Lieutenant told me."

The declaration, indeed. One of many voices loudly demanding reparations. This one was particularly vicious, calling for the deaths of those involved in the Promised Day Coup and promising to deliver personally if parliament don't fall in line. Roy's name is, of course, at the top of their list. He feels a curl of glee inside him that only grows at Ed's awkward study of a nearby tree.

"Are you worried about me, by chance?" Roy prods. Ed snaps back to him.

"It's not my fault you're about as helpful as a chocolate teapot in the rain, Mustang. You've got this country on your shoulders now, you know, you can't just swan about like a moron any more."

"I shall try to cut down on the swanning. Never let it be said that I don't listen to the public."

"Shut up and get under the fucking umbrella."

"As you wish."

There's really no point. Roy is soaked to the bone; his uniform is an entirely different shade of blue; his coat gave up its attempts at being waterproof about twenty minutes into the deluge; even the notes in his pockets are sodden and smudged. But Ed asked so nicely, for Ed, and it would be a shame to waste such a momentous occasion by turning him down.

It is pleasant, though, shoulder to shoulder. It's increasingly pleasant around Ed at all times now, in fact. Saving the world certainly did good things for Ed's various anger issues, but Roy would guess that this new inner peace stems directly from Alphonse. Ed seems to settle further into calm the more Alphonse secures a life for himself. The whole of Central benefits from their new happiness- bar, perhaps, the restaurants, who still seem to find catering to two Elric stomachs too momentous a task- but Roy wonders privately if he doesn't benefit the most.

Ed still bursts into the office. But now he brings pastries and coffees instead of grim news and scowls. Sometimes there are presents from various travels around the world. A tiny marble elephant sits on Roy's desk with a beautiful veiled courtesan inside; the transmutation marks on it are almost indistinguishable. Meticulous papers (in much neater handwriting now that Ed is able to write with his dominant hand) on the process of its creation lie in his desk drawer, along with the well-worn note 'ALMOST PRISTINE - hard work done you do the rest bastard - Ed'.

And after work, when he's avoiding bars that he and Maes used to hole themselves up in, Roy will find himself dragged to dinner and alchemical seminars, and even to cabarets sometimes too. There's always a welcoming smile for the Elric brothers. It's amazing to see how many hearts they manage to touch just by being in one place for long enough. It's amazing how they've touched his heart.

How Ed has touched his heart.

The umbrella knocks Roy in the back of the head. Ed is still shorter than him by about half a foot or so, and Roy is not the tallest of men, but the runt is definitely catching up. The umbrella hits him again. He cups a palm around Ed's hand and lifts the handle gently. The back of his hair is going to be an embarrassment, but it's worth it. Ed goes bright red.

"O-oi what do you think you're doing?"

"You still hold things too low for those of us of average height."

"Fuck you!" Ed splutters. He wriggles his fingers free like Roy's hand burns and brings his palms together to wring his hands nervously. For a moment he can't work out what to do with them, but then he clicks his knuckles and jams them each into a pocket. "Hold it yourself then, Asshole."

They walk in silence, companionable despite Ed's simmering rage. Roy thinks Ed likes their game of cat and mouse almost as much as he does. It's a friendly link to the old days, innocent enough to feel like familiar history without dredging up the ugly oily bits.

"Where are you even going?" Ed grumbles.

"I was going home."

"Screw that. Your house is like half an hour away. Let's just dry off at mine and wait the rain out."

"I wouldn't want to impose-"

"Are you going to make me walk all the way to yours? Because you know I will." Ed flashes gilded eyes at him, and Roy sighs deeply. Ed knows him. And that's certainly a scary thought.

"Your place it is."

Edward and Alphonse have a little townhouse, very thoughtfully provided by the military as part of a 'services to the country' package that Roy aggressively 'suggested' they receive. From the pictures, it doesn't seem quite as pretty as their hand-built home in Risembool, but it gets the job done when they neede a place to stay in Central. Now that Alphonse is in the middle of classes, Roy likes to think they both appreciate having a small but tasteful home in the city centre.

The towering gates guarded by gargoyles are new, though.

"Subtle." Roy comments as Ed pushes one to.

"Sometimes we get people snooping. If you're going to have a deterrent, it might as well look cool." Ed sniffs and steps onto the driveway. Roy shakes his head and is just thankful that Ed's dress sense, at the least, has managed to catch up with the rest of the world.

"The tulips are doing well," Roy says, nodding to a splash of colour in the flower beds.

"They should be. Al loves those fuckin' flowers more than he loves me."

"Well, they are quieter. And infinitely easier to feed." Roy gets a middle finger for his efforts.

Wrenching open the porch door, Ed ushers him inside to stand with the shoes and the morning newspaper. The door clicks softly behind them. There's just enough room for them both to stand, maybe to crouch. The air inside is slightly warmer, but not by much. Now that he's stopped moving, Roy's body is cooling immediately. He can feel the shivers coming on.

Ed is patting down his pockets roughly. Roy can only watch him balefully as he pulls out pens and sugar packets and other detritus.

"You don't have your keys, do you?"

"Hold on Mustang, I'm looking." Ed reaches inside his waistcoat, and then somewhat desperately into his shirt breast pocket.

"Perhaps they're in your socks?"

"Shut the fuck up."

"We can always go to mine." As Roy says it, thunder rumbles and the rain begins to lash at the windows with double the force of before. People in the street run for doorways even with umbrellas. The two of them share a soggy wince.

"You had to say it," Ed groans.

"My apologies."

"Whatever." They watch the rain for while, condensation slowly forming on the window. The shivers have taken Roy fully now, and he's hunched in an undignified manner hoping that Ed doesn't notice. Nothing is going to dry in the chill of the porch, and he's soaked through every layer even if it could. He certainly won't be forgetting an umbrella again any time soon. In fact, he decides, he's going to buy them in bulk and leave a whole pot of them at the office, and another pot at the door of his house.

"Why are you standing there all wet and grouchy?" Ed asks incredulously.

"I'm sorry, did I miss the heated towel cabinet in here? My mistake."

"Dick. Just transmute it. Geeze you're dumb." Ed slumps against the wall and crosses his arms. Roy ponders his words.

"I never learnt that particular circle."

"It's pretty close to your specialty. It's just...you're increasing atom speed instead of focusing on molecule density and gas." Ed blinks at him owlishly, but doesn't move. Clearly, this is something Roy will have to do himself. He sniffs. With a shaky finger he sketches a circle in the condensation. The water drips down immediately, rendering it useless, but Ed understands. "That's it. But you want to move that rune up here or you'll end up with a puddle. Not that you haven't already left one, but whatever." Reaching over, Ed scrubs out one of Roy's runes and draws in a new one.

"Isn't this against your teacher's code?" Roy arches a brow. Ed snorts.

"My teacher. Not yours. You waste alchemy on flashy attacks all the time."

"They're not 'flashy'; they're technically brilliant."

"Stop sulking and try the goddamn circle." Ed's hands are on his hips and his eyes are shining, and Roy suddenly wonders how often he gets to talk about alchemy, these days. Al's alchemy is mostly plant and medicine based. Roy's mind casts out to what Ed would have worked on, the theories that he must have had cooking during his long quest for the stone. That's an awful lot of potential to have lost. Well, traded.

He touches his palms without sound -'flashy' indeed, from Edward Elric that's simply farcical- and touches the fingers humming with energy to his coat. There's a burst of movement, and a hum through the air. Ed gets hit in the face with a blast of heated condensation and for a moment just stands stunned, looking lost. Roy laughs at him and gets a hard glare in return.

"Okay, okay. I'm sorry. I'll...reign it back in a little bit." Trying again, expanding the area but pulling back on the movement in his mind, Roy touches his uniform. The blast this time is controlled, and he even disperses the water molecules in the air to decrease the humidity of the room. Ed shrugs at him like he's just learned his times tables.

"Better?" Ed asks. Roy shuffles in his uniform. It's bliss not to be wet.

"Much. Thank you."

"Tricks from going on your stupid missions. You should thank yourself."

"Thanks, me." Roy answers without skipping a beat. Ed hits him in the arm.

"You know...we could try that on your gloves." Ed proposes cautiously. He's trying to look nonchalant, but there's a sparkle of intense focus in his eyes that's impossible to miss.

"I think I got the gloves. They're in my pocket."

"No, I mean...for when you're using them. In the rain. We could...set up a chain of transmutations so that they eject all water molecules before your flame circle activates." The genius cogs in Ed's head are turning. Truth may have taken his gate, but his basic knowledge of alchemy was earned with hours of study and practice, and that is a debt long paid off.

"That's going to make my reaction time ridiculously slow."

"Better than having Lieutenant Hawkeye kick your feet out from under you and fight off your enemy with guns alone." Ed hurls back at him. Roy opens his mouth, and then closes it again. "That's what I thought."

Ed grabs the newspaper and pulls a pen out of nowhere, dropping to a crouch and sketching right over a picture of Grumman's face with a complex array.

"Hey! Do you want my hands to explode?"

"Huh?" Ed responds eloquently. Roy gestures at the lethal lines with distrust.

"There's a reason that I didn't use those in my array. And that reason is that I like being in one piece."

Ed rolls his eyes but sits back on his heels.

"You're gonna' have to get the gloves out. And give me some fuckin' input, Mustang, you're the expert here."

Roy's not sure about that. At this point he's fairly certain that he only has knowledge beyond Edward's because Ed hasn't had the opportunity to learn it yet. A boon of age. And Riza's father. Somehow he finds himself pulling out the ignition cloth from his pocket and smoothing out the circle on the floor. Ed is silent, making adjustments as Roy talks over the finer points of the array. Roy leans forward to get a look at what he's doing. Leaning a hand on Ed's shoulder gets him a confused glance, but it's allowed to remain there. Ed is warm.

Outside the sky is darkening. The rain is a constant, relentless melody on the roof. Balls of newspaper litter the corners of the porch (and one is tucked peacefully into Ed's hood, to be found and ranted over at a later date) but after almost an hour of work and bickering and quiet admiration, they have something that could pass as a prototype. Roy looks over their handiwork with pride. It's been too long since he delved properly into alchemy. He didn't realise just how much he'd missed it.

"I'm worried about the stability. Its effect on the outer array-"

"Can only be determined with a test."

"This is the kind of thing that's relegated to the labs, Edward. And for good reason. It could bring down the building." Roy's voice is that of an adult, but inside him is the irresistible curiosity of a child to see how his new toy works. Ed just grins at him, teeth sharp and white.

"It's my house."

"And Alphonse's"

"He'd understand. He's an alchemist too, you know?"

They stare each other down. Roy quirks an eyebrow and tries to look disinterested, but Ed just grins back at him, slyly. He knows. Somewhere along the way, he's learned how to read Roy, and-

"I guess I can just try it out with Al at his lab tomorrow. We can telegram you the results. The labs are usually closed by the time you get out of the office, after all."

That little brat. How does he know exactly what buttons to press? As if Roy could let someone else test an array that he'd had a hand in. His reputation is a...is a thing, correct? He has his dignity as a scientist. And a general. His eye wants to twitch, but he locks it down.

"We could get into deep trouble for this," Roy grits out.

"I won't tell if you won't."

For a few tense beats, Roy argues with himself inside his head. Ed just watches him smugly, fingers tapping on the array. Finally, Roy can take his tapping no more. He dunks some discarded newspaper in the puddle he left on the floor, and flops a glove on top of the soggy mass. A single clap, and the ink is drawn out and into a perfect replication of the array between Ed's knees.

"Beautiful." Ed's expression is soft and rapturous. Damp and smiling, he's enough to take Roy's breath away. The next glove Roy places between them. He doesn't clap, but draws the circle manually on their last sheet of paper. He swallows, and holds out both hands to Ed.

"What?" Ed asks bluntly.

"Together." Roy orders. Ed lets out a bark of a laugh.

"I'm no use in that department, Bastard. You know that."

"It's your array too." Ed's eyes are hungry and cautious. For once he is silent and serious as he lifts his hands. There's a moment's hesitation, but then he finally lays them, palm down, over Roy's knuckles. Roy nods at him.

He hasn't used a circle for some time. The blue light, the channels of energy, are nostalgic. There's a wind in the porch, whipping Ed's bangs and revealing the tiny scar above his eyebrow. The blue lightning highlights him; his cheekbones and lips and eyelashes. Roy tears his gaze away to focus on the glove. Ed is always commanding his attention. Something turns over heavily in his chest.

The second glove is as perfect as the first, of course. As the transmutation dies down, Ed closes his eyes. For a moment his hands remain over Roy's, and Roy's fingers want to twitch. When Ed finally frees him, his eyes are suspiciously wet. Roy doesn't comment.

"I have to go outside again to test these, don't I?" He drones instead. Ed coughs a half laugh into his fist.

"Suck it up," is his advice. Roy sighs dramatically and starts to unbuckle his jacket. He doesn't miss how Ed's eyes slide over him when he shrugs it off.

The rain has lowered from 'monsoon season' to a mere 'torrential', but the wind is minimal. The silver lining is that there's no one around to see them try their foolish experiment.

Ed, in a show of solidarity, Roy supposes, has also come out into the rain. His hair is already plastered to his cheeks. He scrubs it out of his eyes irritably...adorably.

"Go on then," Ed prompts. Roy holds the gloves out, allowing the water to saturate them. He takes a deep breath, sends out a small prayer to the ether, and raises a hand.  
It doesn't take much to activate a circle that's against your skin. It's just a matter of thinking at it, really. Two though, two is pushing it. And four is a test of concentration that Roy never thought he'd have to endure. The different arrays pull at his consciousness; tiny hands plucking his attention. He has to fight to push all the energy into one and not the other, and then once it's in the right place, it only really has the lines as a guide. All the work is down to him.

Sweat rolls down his back. For a moment everything goes wonky, his vision tilting. Grappling it back, Roy grits his teeth and wrestles it into submission. The reward is a sudden burst of evaporation. Then, before the effect is lost, he swipes the pad of his thumb across his index finger. The spark is strong. The jet of fire is weak.

Ed lets out a whoop behind him.

"First try! Are we great or what? I can't believe that worked." His grin is contagious. Roy allows a smirk to creep across his face.

"It took me almost a whole minute, and I don't think that would have even toasted a marshmallow, but I suppose we can consider it a success."

"You bet your stuffy ass, we can. Do it again! I bet we can reduce your transmutation time by a third if we tweak it to each hand."

"Really?"

Ed grabs his wrist and lifts, twisting and turning. The gloves are already soaked again. Roy will have to get a different ink to avoid bleeding. These are not potent enough thoughts to distract him from a very wet, very happy Edward manhandling his arm, but by god he's trying.

"Move this line here, and if we stick an equilateral in here, maybe? Only on the left hand. That's for the fancy stuff, yeah?"

"It's...for precision, yes."

"Once you get the flow fixed in your head, we could probably take the circles off your gloves altogether. Oh, but then you'd have to clap. Clapping's not so bad. But it does mean people keep trying to rip your arm off instead of just destroying your array."

Roy finds himself slightly starstruck as he takes off the gloves to lay them in Ed's palms. He changes the ink circles on them whilst trying not to notice the contrast between Ed's scarred left hand and unmarred right. The rain seems a minor annoyance, now. He's not even cold.

With any luck, it's because he's coming down with a fever.

Ed is, of course, correct about their alterations. Roy creates a few more pathetic fountains of flame, and then stops to make some changes of his own. Ed comes running over like a puppy, if puppies could knock you out with one hit and sass like a master. He drinks in Roy's changes and grins again, and...has Roy ever seen him smile so much? It makes him feel a little breathless. If he was alone he'd be banging his head against a wall by now.

The next jets are decent enough. They'd be an adequate defense, should he need it. The time it takes to trigger all three in succession is cut to a fraction if he blocks off the explosive power of his right hand. In rain like this, anything that big isn't going to work anyway.

And then, standing in the deluge and trying desperately to pretend he isn't falling head over heels for the most beloved hero of the country, Roy has a stroke of mad genius. He blames it on proximity.

"I have a...potentially dangerous idea." Roy flicks his gaze over his shoulder to Ed.

"That sounds like fun."

"There's usually between seventy to ninety percent relative humidity in central, which I adjust for. During rain like this, it rises into the eighties, and that's where the problem comes in. If I can stretch the area affected by this new array, I could create a space around me at a much lower humidity. I could disperse the water on the gloves, the falling drops, and the molecules in the air all at once."

"That sounds reasonable. What's the problem?"

"...If it's too reduced, and the mass of dry air too high, I could end up crispier than desired."

"Oh."

"Indeed."

"Maybe...maybe you were right about doing this in a lab."

"We've come this far." Roy is feeling playful, and dangerous, and utterly mad, really. "It's not like I'm a stranger to brushes with death."

"Don't be dramatic. If you burn your eyebrows off, you know you'll be depressed for a month until they grow back." Ed rolls his eyes, but they return to skate over Roy's drenched shoulders. Roy hits him with a flirtatious smirk and Ed tenses up, blush rising to his face.

Roy swivels on his heel, sending a circle of water droplets flicking out around him. So he's showing off. So pride comes before a fall. His heart beats strong in his chest and his mind is sparking with new ideas and this, this is what drew him to alchemy in the first place. Ed's eyes are hot on his back as he flexes his fingers, and lifts his hands. Licking his lips, he takes a breath in.

He has it now, the trick of it. He has the fundamentals down. With a whoosh of steam, the area clears, and his clothes dry. Around him, the air lightens and clamours with energy. He's suspended in a moment. And then he clicks his fingers.

Fire circles round him. It races; a snake of flame hulahooping through the dehumidified air. He laughs out loud, plummeting the flame into the ground to splutter in the grass. Ed barrels into him from behind, slapping him on the back.

"You're wasted on the goddamn military, Mustang!"

"I'm not done yet." Roy hooks an arm around his waist, and pulls Ed close enough that he'll be out of harm's way. The dehumidifying blast makes Ed's eyes go wide. Roy clicks.

Fire blooms above them, an umbrella of flame. The raindrops hiss as they hit it; reduced to gas in the heat. Roy watches the flames roil, beautiful and organic. He feels satisfaction well up inside him. Who knew they could be such a team? After Ishval...after Ishval his alchemy was a tool, and only that. It got his job done and acted as one more step in the staircase to his goals. But one miserable afternoon with Ed and it's art again. For once he allows a genuine smile to rule his face, and he turns it on Ed with thanks in his eyes. He's not sure what to say.

"Edward-"

A hand in his collar, a harsh yank pulling him down to Ed's level, and then the flames start to dissipate as his concentration is consumed by the sensation of Ed's demanding mouth over his. His brain stops dead and then jump starts back Into action. He can't - but he has to. There's absolutely no way he can refuse those lips; It's simply impossible for him to turn away. Gloved hands curl into Ed's coat. Here in the rain, clutching tight and breathing hard, having conquered the impossible, the two of them are ineluctable.

The fire is nothing but a memory. Their protection gone, the rain returns in force. It plasters the two of them with a deafening roar. Ed is his, alone in this wet world.

Ed bites Roy's bottom lip and his blood thumps at once to boiling. Brushing the ignition cloth over Ed's jaw and neck draws out a delicious gasp, and it fills a space inside Roy that he hadn't even realised was empty.

With a frustrated noise Ed disconnects them and shoves him towards the porch again. Roy's shoulder blades take the brunt as he's pressed into the front door, two mismatched hands curled into the wet fabric of his shirt and a hot mouth giving him no room to talk. The door slams behind them hard enough to rattle the windows.

"Do you have any idea how long-" Ed's sentence is broken by dappled kisses to Roy's neck that run a tingle through his nerves. "I've wanted to...if I'd have known you were interested, I'd have done this the second Al got out of hospital." Roy's heart aches for the time they've lost. He elects to keep his own mouth shut, barely breathing in case he suddenly reminds the universe how he's supposed to be; alone, and unattached, and unable to pull anyone down with him.

Ed though, the universe has already taken its widest swings at. Ed can survive anything. Ed is an unstoppable force and an immovable object all wrapped up in the same golden casing. Ed can even survive Roy.

"I'm not sure I could have let you go to Risembool if you'd done that." There's a low husk to Roy's voice that startles even him. He's being dragged deeper by the god-forsaken second, and it's as thrilling as it is terrifying. Everything that Roy has been running from is surfacing, erupting from the cracks in the walls he's built up. Ed snorts loudly beside his ear.

"Like you 'let me' do anything. I do what I want now."

"You always did."

"Too right," Ed murmurs over Roy's lips. The vibrations almost tickle, so Roy connects them suddenly. "Mmpf!" Is all that Ed can manage.

Eventually Roy pulls away to take off his glove. He wants to touch, wants to feel through more than ignition cloth. One hand remains curled protectively around Ed's waist, and when he takes a white-fabric finger between his teeth and tugs the glove free, Ed's pupils blow wider than Xingan desert. Roy drops it somewhere by their feet. Ed looks like he wants to eat him.

Slipping fingers into the hair at the base of Ed's ponytail, Roy tilts his head and calls up every skill, every flicker of want within himself. He bends Edward backwards slightly, and parts his damp, waiting mouth to kiss him deeply and with complete control. Ed melts against him. He's boneless and almost painted on to Roy's front, they're so close. A small noise escapes Ed's kiss-pinked lips, and a shudder runs through him. Roy can feel his every move. The heat between them is stifling, and the windows are clouded completely. When Ed pulls him sharply by the collar, fighting to corner him, Roy's palm leaves a messy print on the glass.

Breath short and heart thumping, Roy gives in to long-contemplated fantasies. He sinks his teeth into the pale flesh of Ed's neck, just hard enough to hurt. Ed groans loudly and fists a hand in Roy's hair in retaliation. Roy allows his own hands to wander too; sliding them inside Ed's slightly-too-big coat to confidently grip the ass that has plagued him and his office couch for years. Dragging Ed forward, he grinds them both together and feels Ed's lips split into a wicked grin.

That grin morphs into an 'oh' of surprise as the porch door opens, rain whipping in, and the two of them almost tumble straight out into the puddle-flooded garden.

Alphonse blinks at them, umbrella dripping and blush invading his face right up to the tips of his ears. Ed's eyes are wide and terrified, so Roy nods a greeting.

"Good evening, Alphonse." Gently he lifts Ed back to his feet, and tries to be subtle about pulling his rumpled collar away from his neck for some much-needed air. Al closes his eyes and takes a deep breath through his nose.

"A-Al-" Ed tries.

"Good afternoon, General. Could I get to the door please?" Al asks, composing himself and clapping around his grocery bag.

"Of course." Roy, ever the gentleman, steps back out into the rain. Ed's mouth is opening and closing like a fish, until he catches himself and hides in his own bangs.

Al disarms the alchemic locks on the door, and slips his keys in with a clunk. The door swings wide.

"Al, sorry I...I forgot my keys, and-"

"That's okay, that's fine. I don't want to know."

"It's not like we were-"

"Idon'twanttoknow!" Al garbles, positively glowing red. He props his umbrella in a corner and hurries into the house. Ed scrambles after him.

"Seriously, Al!"

"I said you could do whatever you want! I'm just going to not be around for it, if you don't mind."

"Mustang was just going anyway. Oi! Weren't you leaving, General Bastard?" Roy can see Ed's head pop round the end of the corridor, and he chuckles.

"Of course. I'll see you boys tomorrow. Goodbye, Edward." Ed's own face is also scarlet, and all he can manage is a shaky little wave in Roy's direction. It's ridiculous, and adorable. Gently, Roy closes the front door. He searches for a moment for his fallen glove, and finds it half inside a shoe. The new circle on it is blurry from the rain, but still legible. He slips the glove on and feels the reassuring hug of it around his fingers.

The door behind him opens again in a rush, and Ed nearly collides with him. For a moment they blink at one another.

"Umbrella," Ed ejects without context.

"Umbrella?"

"Take the umbrella. And be careful on the way home." Blonde ends are curling slightly in the damp, and Ed is beautiful framed in the light of the doorway. Roy is going to think of nothing else all day tomorrow in the office. Hawkeye will probably run out of bullets before the day is through.

Ed reaches out and tugs him down by the coat lapel, standing on his tiptoes. A chaste but steady kiss is pressed to Roy's lips; a promise. A pledge. Roy can't fight the sheer delight that springs to his eyes.

"You'd better come tomorrow, Mustang. Don't be late."

"I wouldn't dare." Roy swears. There's a beat of silence between them, and then Ed is turning red again. Roy knows he'll soon grow out of that, and commits the image to memory.

"Brother?" Ed jumps about five feet at the call.

"Coming!" The door is slammed in Roy's face, but he's still smiling. He allows the grin to remain even as he grabs the umbrella, and strides out again into the storm.

And if his team looks at him like he's deranged the next morning, he's sure they'll all figure it out quickly enough. Ed's bright red stuttering should be more than enough reason for Roy's sudden euphoria.

 

 


End file.
